The widespread use of electronic data transmission utilizing various networking technologies including, but not limited to, IPv4, IPv6 and various streaming technologies have inherent vulnerabilities and potential leakage. In addition, the recently added technology currently referred to as “Software Defined Networking” (SDN) allows routing of packets and streams from a starting point to an end point without the traditional transitions through hardware routers. SDN is an approach to networking that allows management of network behavior by administrators by decoupling the system that makes decisions about where traffic is sent (commonly referred to as SDN Controllers) from the underlying systems that forward traffic. This abstraction of lower-level functionality is meant to address the fact that the static architectures of traditional networks don't support the dynamic, scalable computing, routing, and storage needs of modern computing environments like cloud computing and modern data centers. Artifact data is used to encapsulate the information as each of these hardware routers forwards the information.
With recent changes in laws, both domestic and international, it is possible that the mere transition of a packet or stream through a specific jurisdiction would have legal ramifications for the information contained in the packet or stream. Corporations, large and small, and governments (at all levels) utilize various techniques to ensure that their data is not compromised during this transmission. Notably they will either use end to end encryption or technologies such as Virtual Private Networking (VPN). In some uses only a very expensive point-to-point physical connection (either optical or electrical) is permitted to ensure against compromise. These technologies (other than the very expensive point-to-point connections) provide no assurance that the information (in its encrypted form) was not disclosed to a third party, nor do these technologies assure where (in jurisdictional terms) a portion or the entire stream of packets has been. A single compromised router in the transmission chain or a forced change in the routing table (using standard routing table broadcast techniques) to force packets and streams through a compromised router can disclose this information (even if encrypted in form) to unauthorized third parties.
Corporations, government agencies, and individual home users have been the victims of embarrassing and costly breaches of routers, and once breached and the encrypted information disclosed, it is merely time before the key can be ascertained. The time to ascertain this key has been dropping following a near geometric, not linear, curve. A wide variety of techniques for protecting computer networks are known, including but not limited to firewalls, password protection and encryption. However, such techniques may need to be frequently updated in order to defend against newly developed attack techniques and newly discovered vulnerabilities. Moreover, such techniques do not guarantee security. For example, encrypted and password-protected information may be stolen in a protected form and security features subsequently defeated in an offline attack. Techniques for securing information and networks may also hinder access to the information and management of the data containing the information.
Consequently, there is a need for an information transmission technology that overcomes the vulnerabilities associated with compromised routers and standard encryption techniques.